Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 67432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
I reached for his hand. He didn’t pull away. His fingers locked with mine, causing my heart to swell as heat spiraled up my palm, swirling around my wrist and forearm, spreading through me like an out-of-control forest fire.
Being here with Colton, walking under a blanket of stars, listening to the crunch of rocks under our feet and the chirp of crickets in the air… it felt… it felt right. It felt good. It felt real.
“What do you think my dad was going to tell me?”
His question landed like a shooting star, sparking a dozen different theories, none of them more valid than the last. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “You know your dad better than I do.”
Although I did have a good idea of who William was from my preliminary research. He had a large online footprint, which made it easy to see his entire eighteen-year-long work history and social media presence. I saw big dates marked with a flurry of photos (weddings, birthdays, graduations), while the darker dates were absent or appeared as blips in his timeline:
Amelia and William have separated.
A quick status update mentioning the passing of his father.
Another status update about his stepping down from the board of his company.
But what I noticed about those moments was that he always seemed to turn it around. In days, he’d be back to posting smiling photos in the Bahamas or traveling through Europe or surrounded by his kids at another birthday party. He didn’t seem to let the world beat him down, which was why I was surprised to see him shuffling his feet around the villa this morning, his shoulders slumped and head bowed.
He resembled a man that had been thrown in the ring and come out bloodied and bruised, every bone hurting with each tiny movement.
“I don’t know him, that’s the thing.” Colton let out an exasperated breath. A breeze stirred the tall stalks of light purple lavender. They were planted at the villa in honor of Amelia, who had loved the flowers. Just like my mom had. “He’s been pretty distant with me for a while now. I go to his birthday parties and see him around the holidays, but we haven’t actually spent quality time together in years. And it got even worse after my mom’s death. That’s why him acting like that in the kitchen surprised the fuck out of me.”
“It has to be something big,” I said. “Maybe he knew your mom had been with Jax all those years?”
Colton winced, shook his head.
“Or maybe,” I continued theorizing, “maybe he wants to tell you he’s been seeing someone? Maybe he found another woman and feels bad even bringing her up.”
“Hmm, maybe…” Colton’s hand squeezed mine. I could see the gears spinning in his head, his bright blue eyes catching some of the moonlight and reflecting it back at me like a pair of perfectly cut diamonds.
“How’s things with your dad been?” Colton asked. We had stopped walking, the villa behind us and the mountains ahead, rolling fields made up of dark purple waves in between. “I remember it being a little rocky back when we were in the academy.”
I leaned against a fence post, Colton’s hand slipping from mine. My memories were dragged right back to those “rocky” days, when my dad and I were simply butting heads and not locked in a full-on nuclear war together. “Things haven’t gotten any better.”
“Oh? Weren’t you two really close?”
“We were. Especially after my mom passed. I was just twelve, but I barely ever left his side after that,” I said, a little piece of me warming at the realization that Colton remembered all these things about me. He remembered the fabric that made up the threads of my past without needing to be told or filled in. He just knew, the same way I knew about him.
“What happened?” Colton asked. I realized I had been walling myself off. Thinking of my dad—it was painful.
Speaking about him? That shit was torture.
“We stopped talking. He’s basically dead to me.”
“Damn, that bad?”
“That bad.” I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t want to soil such a perfect night with such rotten thoughts. But Colton wasn’t taking my silence as an answer. He prodded some more, asking me about the details, not knowing the details had to do with him.
“He found some texts. Between you and I. He was using my phone to order some food, and he tapped the wrong app. When he read what we had written to each other, he flipped. Threw my phone across the room, wanted me out of his house. He told me to come back after I ‘fixed’ myself.
“That was the night I ended things with you. I got back to our dorm, and I remember it being the nastiest fucking storm outside, and you were sitting on the couch, excited I got back. You already had the controllers out and the video game playing on the TV.”